ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Darrell, what on earth is going on?
DARRELL ISSA: Why, the IRS investigation is going on, no thanks to you.
ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Is that right? Forgotten that progressive groups have been targeted by the IRS?
DARRELL ISSA: I don't have time to talk about this. I have a committee to run.
ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Oh, I think you do have time to talk about it. If progressive and liberal groups are being targeted as well as Tea Party and conservative groups, why is it that President Obama and the White House would be going after both?
DARRELL ISSA: Elijah, don't tell me how to run my own committee!
Uh oh. UH OH!
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
House Republicans, as part of their multi-pronged focus on the Internal Revenue Service, are calling the agency’s interim leader to testify next week to explain how the IRS selects small businesses for audits.
Danny Werfel will appear before the House Small Business Committee on July 17, a day before other IRS employees appear before the Oversight and Government Reform panel to talk about the selective scrutiny they applied to small-government groups.
“Our intention is to make sure small businesses aren’t being unfairly audited or scrutinized for inappropriate purposes, as has occurred with some conservative leaning nonprofit groups,” Representative Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican and chairman of the Small Business Committee, said in a statement.
Oh wait. It's just Darrell Issa and his Republican colleagues summoning the IRS Chief on yet more inquiries that have to do about ONLY the Tea Party and conservative groups, not the liberal groups.
Sounds like the kind of oversight that was done during President Bush's tenure when he started and escalated the Iraq War:
Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in announcing his hearing that interference from IRS officials in Washington delayed anti-tax Tea Party groups’ applications for nonprofit status.
“This hearing will examine why decisions to elevate cases to more senior levels of the IRS led to unjust delays and unfair treatment of Tea Party applications,” Issa, a California Republican, said in a statement. “Had Washington IRS officials simply kept their hands off these cases and allowed employees in the Cincinnati office to process applications independently, instead of facing excessive delays, these cases would have been processed just like other advocacy cases.”
The IRS said May 10 that it had given extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups, some of which experienced delays in their dealings with the agency exceeding three years. The disclosure has prompted six congressional inquiries, a Justice Department criminal probe and the resignation of the acting IRS commissioner.
Ok but again, where is the investigation on IRS targeting liberal groups, even if it may be done at a lesser extent?
As this Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader points out, the scandal really isn't as politically-motivated as Darrell Issa and others make it out to be:
http://www.kentucky.com/...
Liberal groups also scrutinized
It was the little scandal that couldn't.
Despite considerable effort from Republicans to fan the flames all the way to the White House, the Internal Revenue Service scandal has been definitively snuffed.
The kerfuffle began in May, when a report by a Treasury Inspector General concluded that the IRS had inappropriately singled out conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for additional scrutiny.
But that report has since been proven to be critically flawed.
The Inspector General's office had knowingly excised mention of the IRS' scrutiny of groups with the words "progressive," "Occupy," "healthcare legislation" or "Israel" in their names.
Instead, the report portrayed the IRS as exclusively targeting "Tea Party" or "patriot" organizations, prompting criticism from this editorial page and righteous indignation from Republicans and Democrats alike.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R.-Calif., the powerful chairman of the House Oversight Committee, whose raison d'etre appears to be pinning any scandal — real or imaginary — on President Barack Obama, began a comprehensive investigation.
But the results did little to corroborate his conspiratorial worldview.
Furthermore:
Testimony released by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D.-Md., the ranking member on the committee, refuted any allegations of Nixonian overreach.
Instead, the released interview with IRS official John Shafer, a conservative Republican who launched the screening program, recorded him as saying, "what I did was not targeting."
When asked whether the White House was involved, Shafer replied "I have no reason to believe that."
And contrary to cries of governmental tyranny, no one was denied the freedom to exercise their political beliefs — they simply had to wait a little longer for a tax credit.
I'm confused: Is Congressman Issa running the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee or is he running the Conservative House Oversight & Government Reform Committee?
I'm only kidding folks.
As usual, keep the San Diego County Democratic Party busy since they're the most local and active Democratic Party nearby Darrell Issa's area of residence (not to mention his local office).
Make sure you mark down this information and pass it on to others for firing up the base in California's 49th Congressional District if you want to target Issa for re-election and get voter registration drives going:
San Diego County Democratic Party Website: http://www.sddemocrats.org/
Address: 8340 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, Suite 10 San Diego, CA 92111
Phone: (858) 277-3367
Fax: (858) 571-0275
E-mail: info@sddemocrats.org
Contact Form: http://www.sddemocrats.org/....
While you're at it, you might as well make a visit or mount a protest in front of Darrell Issa's Vista, CA office at the following address:
1800 Thibodo Rd
Vista, CA 92081